For the 4th year in a row, The EuroTour SUP headed over to St. Jean de Monts in the beautiful region of Pays de la Loire, France, for the Vendee Gliss event. Always with impressive logistics, its worth mentioning that these guys held the only International event during the pandemic in 2020 and were the main venue of Eurotour2020 out of only 4 events that took place last year.
This year unfortunately the famous wind that the event is known for didn’t quite arrive, so it was a long day in the water for all of our athletes. Nonetheless, Team Starboard put on fantastic performances both in the Men’s and Women’s races.
Fresh from his last win in Switzerland, it was another master class by New Caledonian Titouan Puyo that absolutely dominated to win in an impressive 2h7mins over the 22km course. Equally impressive was his compatriot Clement Colmas (Starboard) to claim 2nd after surging at the end to leave his compatriot Arthur Arutkin in 3rd. The Juniors also had an amazing day with Ethan Bry (Starboard) in 4th place and first in the Junior classification. Ethan’s sterling result sees him now qualified for the APP World Tour!
Top 10 Men Results from Vendee Gliss SUP Race:
- Titouan Puyo 🇫🇷
- Clement Colmas 🇫🇷 Starboard SUP
- Arthur Arutkin 🇫🇷
- Ethan Bry 🇫🇷 Starboard SUP
- Marcus Hansen 🇳🇿
- Rafael Sirvent 🇪🇸 Starboard SUP
- Tom Auber 🇫🇷
- Boris Jinvresse 🇫🇷
- Fernando Perez Serra 🇪🇸
- Manuel Hoyuela 🇪🇸
On the women side, it was the ever-smiling Fiona Wylde out of the USA that dominated from start to finish to win by over a minute her Starboard SUP teammate Espe Barreras from Spain. Putting the best performance of her career was French youngster Anais Guyomarch that claimed 3rd over the always consistent Italian Starboard team rider Caterina Stenta in 4th.
Top 10 Women Results from Vendee Gliss SUP Race:
- Fiona Wylde 🇺🇸 Starboard SUP
- Espe Barreras 🇪🇸 Starboard SUP
- Anais Guyomarch 🇫🇷
- Caterina Stenta 🇮🇹 Starboard SUP
- Amandine Chazot 🇫🇷
- Iona Rivet 🇫🇷
- Petronella Van Malsen 🇳🇱
- Erica Revil 🇫🇷
Fiona Wylde;
“A win on my last day of racing in Europe! I am super happy to take top honors in the EuroTour SUP Vendee Gliss Event!
It’s been a long four weekends of incredible racing and I am soooo happy to finish on a high note! Yesterday was a 23km downwind race with no wind over 10knots. It was a grind and I’m really happy with my performance to focus on the little bumps and connect what I could. The entire race my teammate @espe.bs was pushing hard behind me so I couldn’t give up.
This month has been so amazing to reconnect with friends after so long not traveling. The best part of sport are the friends we make and the memories we carry with us. Thank you to everybody who helped make this trip so memorable! And a big congrats to all of the competitors in every category!”
Clement Colmas;
“I am happy to get 2nd place at the Vendé Glisse!
The forecast was about 6 knots all day for this downwind race so I choose the Sprint 14′ x19.75″ ~ I really like the lightness and the glide of this board when the conditions are like this.”
Caterina Stenta;
“With not much wind, the early stage of the Vendee Gliss event was tough paddling and it took me a while to get the feeling of the downwind rhythm and catching bumps so I was a bit behind and needed to play ctachiup. I then started to feel the ocean and the board better and started to gain some positions, first I took Amandine Chazot and then I was getting closer and closer to the third but in the end, I finished in fourth.”
